


contact high

by goldcarnations



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Wrestling, F/F, Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Lack of Communication, Romance, Sexual Tension, and no more shitty racist stereotypes its Just Women Fighting (JWF?), based entirely from what i learned while watching glow, they're filming glow but it's not overtly 80s and the sexual tension is Addressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24686791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldcarnations/pseuds/goldcarnations
Summary: But in the in-between, behind the gaudiness and sequins and overt, performative misogyny, there’s a sweat-slicked power in it. A rhythm. A choreographed precision. A vicious, brutal sort of beauty, simmering and flammable and deceptively complex. Crimson blooming across her knuckles, bare feet skidding on canvas.That’s the thing about wrestling: it’s unrelenting.Punishing.Thrilling.It would probably be the best gig she’s ever had, if her scene partner would just talk to her.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	contact high

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was inspired by the raw, intense chemistry in that show between ruth and debbie. here's a little note to remind you not to think too hard abt this fic bc i did little to no research or planning while writing so this is probably wildly inaccurate ?? whatever

The interesting part about the role is that Annabeth should objectively be more opposed to playing it than she is.

It’s a surprising sentiment, actually, since it’s a goddamn _wrestling_ show, created by some seedy indie company that she’s pretty sure also produces adult films, say nothing about the role itself: a sexualized Greeks versus Romans trope that didn’t translate gracefully to women’s wrestling _at all_. The costumes are skimpy, the stage direction borders pornographic. And Annabeth technically should be against the whole thing, morally and professionally, because this—all of it—it’s vulgar. It’s _degrading_.

But in the in-between, behind the gaudiness and sequins and overt, performative misogyny, there’s a sweat-slicked power in it. A rhythm. A choreographed precision. A vicious, brutal sort of beauty, simmering and flammable and deceptively complex. Crimson blooming across her knuckles, bare feet skidding on canvas. 

That’s the thing about wrestling: it’s unrelenting. 

Punishing.

 _Thrilling_.

It would probably be the best gig she’s ever had, if her scene partner would just talk to her.

* * *

Piper calls to check in on her while Annabeth changes in her trailer.

“Hey, babe, how’re you doing over there?”

Her tinny voice buzzes eagerly from the receiver. Struggling to stand up straight, Annabeth clenches the heavy brick phone between her jaw and her shoulder. It digs into her skin, but at least it frees her hands to try, with futile effort, to change into her other leotard.

“Stellar,” Annabeth grits, pawing at her free shoulder. The straps of her tiny spandex costume become a second skin after a workout. “Being objectified in a homoerotic wrestling television show was exactly, uh, what I had in mind when I—fucking, pfft, _damn it_ —quit my day job.”

“Changed your mind so soon?” Piper says. “You told me last time that you were enjoying the gig.”

“That was before I bruised my ass again this morning. That same spot almost healed when you called yesterday.” The phone is starting to slip from under her chin, so she pauses from undressing momentarily to readjust it. “You really couldn’t have given me a soap to guest star in? A fast food commercial?”

“Sorry, doll, you know the industry,” Piper says vaguely, not sounding very sorry. “But boy, you were perfect for this part, huh? All that Russian ballet training is doing you some good, I hear.”

“My dark past, good for something,” Annabeth says, shuddering. Then, in a deadpan, “My villain backstory.”

Piper laughs. “Villain? Never.” There’s a squeak from the other end; Annabeth can picture Piper leaning back in that chair of hers, clicking her red painted fingers playfully at the polished mahogany of her desk. “You’re too, like, self-righteous for that.”

Annabeth grunts. The straps get even more slippery, somehow. 

“So how are the cast and crew? No one you need me to yell at for you?

“Not exactly.” Annabeth pauses again to blow stray hairs out of her face. “There’s one thing… but it’s a problem that I can deal with myself.”

There’s a hum on the other end. It’s vaguely sing-song-y and the pitch rises at the end like a question. It’s the kind that Annabeth knows is intrigued, willing to pry, and concerned for reasons that are far from professional. Even though she’s annoyed by it, she submits immediately; she would be far more willing to put up a fight if she weren’t so distracted with trying to change. 

“I get this feeling that my co-star doesn’t like me.”

“Reyna? Er, Ramírez-Arellano? The super hot, kind of scary one?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, ‘she doesn’t like you’?”

“I don’t know.” She finally drags the straps down her shoulders and tugs down the top half of her leotard with a relieved sigh. “Just, uh, generally? As a person? Or maybe as a—concept?”

Piper scoffs. “It’s probably just her personality.”

“It’s been a week,” Annabeth says. She peels off the rest of her costume and squints at her second leotard with an inward groan. It’s equally as small as the first, if not smaller. “She barely talks to me, and we’re _co-stars_. We’re filming a—a fucking _television show_ together.”

“It can’t be that bad, Annabeth.”

“It _is_ that bad.”

A pause. 

“Have you considered, maybe, sexual tension?” Piper offers. “Maybe all the touching and grabbing is getting both of you revved up?”

Annabeth freezes. Thank god they’re calling, because Piper would definitely make fun of her for how red her face must be right now. “No way,” she retorts. “I don’t even—she—it’s not that. She just doesn’t like me.”

She can practically hear Piper’s eyebrow raise. “So things are perfectly heterosexual down there?”

“Yes.”

“During the taping of your _female_ _wrestling movie._ ”

“ _Piper_.”

“Touched a nerve,” Piper says easily. “Listen, I know that Reyna is notoriously difficult to get along with, but that’s only ‘cause she’s so _method_ , you know?” A pause. The chair squeaks on the other end again thoughtfully. “I’m sure it’s just her getting—uh—getting _in character_. Eating raw meat. Crushing watermelons between thighs. Cracking skulls. Whatever it is you’re doing down there.”

Piper’s voice is honey over the phone. Her persuasion always had such an effusive, lazy way of disarming people, a trait Annabeth always envied and never quite learned how to resist. 

“Cracking skulls,” Annabeth repeats sulkily. “Uh huh.”

“We’re all professionals here,” chirps Piper, cheery, and it’s there that the conversation effectively ends. It’s never hard to tell when Piper’s about to flit away and put out another one of her million fires. “Alright, honey. Well, let me know when you find out if Reyna is out for blood or just, like, wants to fuck you.”

“I’ll save you the conversation,” Annabeth huffs. “There will be no fucking.”

There’s a staticky, muffled laugh before the line cuts out.

* * *

Rehearsals are a fraught, imprecise affair.

They run drills over and over. They practice the moves, sometimes in costume, sometimes not. There’s flips to practice, jumps to land, new flashy tricks to learn; they stumble through all of them. And after they practice themselves sore, they run through their combos.

They don’t talk.

Reyna’s leotard is a single one-piece, a shiny, vivid slash of byzantium purple, cut to expose the skin at her hips and a frankly criminal amount of her ass. Her skin is copper and unreal in the blue light of the warehouse, and her eyes are hooded, black, dangerous.

They circle each other around the ring, once Reyna throws the first jab it feels less like a gimmick and more like a ritual. A routine. 

In the last move of their combo, Reyna pins Annabeth against her own body, which is expected, but Annabeth’s natural, very visceral reaction definitely is not. With a punch-drunk kind of shock, she picks up her surroundings in vivid detail: the breathtaking proximity between them. The hand pressing down her forearm. Reyna’s chest pressed against her own.

Reyna’s eyes flash with something fierce and inviting. A few strands of hair, loose from Reyna’s braid, ghost Annabeth’s cheekbones. There’s a single bead of sweat clinging to her temple, dripping, _glittering_ , and for some unknown reason Annabeth has a sudden, all-encompassing urge to lick it off. 

Jesus fucking _Christ._

Annabeth scrambles to her feet, breathing hard, burying that desire with all the other compartmentalized emotions she’d deemed irrelevant or too complicated. 

“So,” she pants, “uh, we’ll run this tomorrow? Together? I feel like this combo is missing something.”

Reyna dips her chin downward in a nod, deliberate and curt. 

They still don’t talk.

* * *

The diner next to their hotel is open 24 hours a day. It’s right next to their shooting location and objectively shitty, but there’s a certain comfort in the shittiness. Peeling cherry-colored laminate, pink and blue neon lights, oil-slick menus with cracking plastic covers. Sometimes after her training Annabeth comes by herself, forgoes her meal plan, orders the french toast and eggs, and practically drinks the fucking grease off her plate. Anything tastes delicious at the end of a twelve hour work day.

Plus, it’s a good place to be away from set. To be alone. 

Usually.

Because usually she doesn’t see Reyna here, jumping at the sound of the clanging bells tied to the doors. Usually Reyna’s not frozen at the entrance, dressed down in a fuzzy turtleneck and high-waisted jeans, peering at Annabeth from across the restaurant, arms crossed tight across her chest.

 _Usually_ is the key word. 

Reyna gives a little faltering wave.

Stunned, Annabeth waves back. 

As Reyna approaches, Annabeth can’t help but revel in how _incongruous_ this entire scene is. Throughout the rehearsal period she’s rarely seen Reyna in anything except spandex, but somehow this feels even more intimate—the fact that both of them are _wearing pants_ feels entirely unnatural, like uncharted territory. 

“Is this spot taken?” Reyna asks, stopping at the seat across from Annabeth.

Dumbstruck, Annabeth shakes her head. 

Reyna ducks under the low-hanging, mostly functional fluorescent light above the booth, smoothing her hair back behind her ears. It’s straight and sleek, jarringly different from the mainstream, cut sharp at her shoulders. 

They stare at each other. 

Reyna’s eyes are an utterly unreadable shade of black. Annabeth tries to categorize it, but nothing seems to fit, is the thing. Onyx and coal, darker than cinder, darker than flint. 

“So, um,” Reyna says, clearing her throat. “Do you know what’s good here?”

She gestures to the syrup-soaked french toast in between them. 

The sound of Reyna’s voice, the fact that _she’s_ the one speaking to break the silence, startles Annabeth. She coughs out a stilted, awkward laugh. “On the menu?”

“Yes.”

“I usually get the, uh, the french toast.”

“Right.”

“I’d also recommend the milkshakes.”

“Okay.”

“Plus the fries—the fries are fine. Good.”

“Sure.”

“And the pie,” Annabeth finishes, trailing off. “The pie is, well. Pretty fucking fantastic, actually.” 

Reyna’s mouth twitches, like she’s suppressing a smile, which—yeah, right. That can’t be happening. 

All of this is getting too surreal. 

“I know we’re not that close during rehearsals,” Annabeth says, partially just for the sake of filling up silence, partially to process the fact that she doesn’t understand what the fuck is happening. “So this is good. Talking. Bonding.”

Reyna shrugs. “I mean, we are wrestling.” Her voice is wry. “Can’t get much closer than that.”

“Physically, yes,” Annabeth says. “But I don’t think we’re totally in sync yet. I think we can do better.”

“True. There’s still some moves we haven’t perfected.” Reyna’s drawing her arms tight around herself again. “Maybe I should loosen up? Be a little more gentle?”

With a start, Annabeth realizes that this is the first time she’s ever heard Reyna speak more than two sentences in her direction. There’s something clipped at the end of her sentences, something hostile—no, not hostile, that’s not quite it. 

Perhaps—something guarded. Something _restrained_. 

“No, the level of force you’re using—it’s _great_ ,” Annabeth says, wincing at how earnest she sounds. She’s not earnest. She’s cool under pressure. She’s calculating. She’s unfazed. “It’s fantastic. It really works when we’re rehearsing. But I feel that there are times when we would be…connecting more. Communicating.”

“Communicating,” Reyna repeats, and she gives her a look. A proper, searching, impenetrable look, that somehow conveys nothing yet strips Annabeth naked, makes her transparent, sees right through her. 

Something squirms in Annabeth’s chest. 

She’s never been the type to shy away from confrontation, no matter how hard she tries.

“I just get the feeling sometimes that maybe you don’t like me,” Annabeth blurts.

Another pause, this one longer than the last. _Shit._ So much for calculating. So much for unfazed _._

Reyna’s eyes narrow for a second—Annabeth’s heart catches in her throat—but then she realizes that it’s not a resentful movement by any means. It’s contemplative. Ruminant. Nearly unreadable, just like everything else about Reyna.

“I’m told that I get intense,” Reyna finally says.

She doesn't offer anything else, but that sentence on its own feels revealing somehow.

“Okay. Okay, right, noted,” Annabeth stammers, holding their gaze with effort. “I can work with that. We—we’ll figure it out.” She swallows. Her face is hot and probably—almost certainly—bright red. “We’re both professionals. This is professional.” 

Reyna—

Reyna tilts her head, her eyebrows dark and severe and pensive, watching her, _studying_ her, as if silently judging her for not knowing something painfully obvious. Then her mouth shifts into an effortless smirk, her gaze sly and sultry and _open_ , and Annabeth’s brain stops analyzing and fucking—short circuits. Kicks into overdrive. Fans whirring, parts overheating.

“I think,” Reyna says, thoughtfully, _emphatically_ , “that there’s been a misunderstanding about our relationship.”

And as if any of this couldn’t get any more confusing, sexually or otherwise, Reyna swipes at the layer maple syrup at the edge of Annabeth’s plate and sucks it off, crimson-red mouth around a dainty finger, leveling a difficult, fascinating gaze, _taking her time,_ and—

Yeah.

Annabeth’s head explodes. The whole thing.

  
  


* * *

Rehearsal the next day is different.

Reyna and Annabeth fly through the drills. They race through the jumps. They learn the new moves. 

But when they fight, going through their combo, there’s something different about the chemistry in the air, something charged. 

“You’re going against the ropes now, yeah?” Reyna pants, her mouth at Annabeth’s ear. Her breath fans across Annabeth’s cheek. 

“Yes,” Annabeth breathes.

The next few moves are liquid, lucid—she presses her body against the taut cords around the ring, and breathes in. She exhales when she sees Reyna in her stance, expectant, her braid slipping onto her shoulder. 

Annabeth braces herself. She accepts it; she runs and lets herself fall into it.

Her back slams against the floor in a deafening bang. 

Effortlessly and with no trouble at all, Reyna’s got Annabeth pinned under her body, her forearms resting just next to her ribcage. Annabeth faintly registers the scent of lavender deodorant and the feeling of Reyna’s chest rising and falling against her own, which is somehow the hottest thing she’s ever experienced, and then she finally takes in their positions: they’re nose to nose. Skin flush against skin. 

Neither of them move. 

“How was the connection this time?” Reyna whispers, her voice husky and breathless.

Annabeth’s pulse stops for a brief, dizzying moment.

“It was good,” she croaks.

“Any notes?”

There’s a tension hanging over them, a grit, a thickness in the humid air of this poorly air conditioned set that feels precarious and electrifying and undeniably, terrifyingly, _deeply_ personal.

And it’s unrelenting. 

It’s punishing.

It’s fucking _thrilling_.

“The thing about connection,” Annabeth says belatedly, trying to ignore her heart hammering against her chest, “is that there are more ways than one to connect. To _bond_.” She searches Reyna’s dark eyes, looking for a flash of recognition or whatever fire there was before, and adds meaningfully, “I think we’ve still got some work to do.”

And slowly, in a movement that can only be defined as _opportune_ , Reyna’s lips stretch into a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr/shithole/etc](https://shakespeareans.co.vu/)


End file.
